With a pair of games in the books, it's been interesting to see certain players in their first taste of meaningful hockey for the 2016-17 season.

Looking specifically at the Canucks crease, Ryan Miller already has a sort of shutout but wasn't actually credited with one. Jacob Markstrom looked shaky in his first start but fought through to keep his team in it and get his first 'w' of the season.

Back on the farm, Richard Bachman and Thatcher Demko suffered the Toronto Marlies borderline NHL quality roster, and needless to say, it didn't go well. Both goalies surrendered five goals in their respective appearances.

Remember Bernie Nicholls? The three-time NHL all-star and two-time 100+ point scorer jumped on a phone call with me to discuss the latest around the NHL today and throwing it back a little to discuss some old timers hockey.

There was a lot of excitement in Leafs Nation heading into the 2016-17 NHL season, with a crop of top prospects that included 1st overall pick Auston Matthews, Memorial Cup MVP Mitch Marner, and Swedish wunderkind William Nylander. It took just one game for that excitement to pay off when Matthews put in an incredible four goal performance, setting an NHL record as the only player to score four times in their NHL debut. Matthews' performance is even more impressive when you realise that only one player (Sam Bennett) had a 4-goal game last year, and only 13 players have matched that total in the past five seasons.

Scoring four goals in one game is quite rare; doing it in your first NHL game even moreso. But how long does it normally take for a star to score their first four career goals? For that matter, how long does it take someone who isn't as skilled as most first overall picks? Let's delve into some history and find out.

We're only three games into the 2016-17 National Hockey League season for the Calgary Flames, but one shadow will loom over this entire year: the upcoming 2017 NHL Expansion Draft.

With the Las Vegas Desert Knights, er, No-Names, joining the NHL for 2017-18, we're having an expansion draft in late June. That additional draft will mean a flurry of additional trade and signing activity, and has already resulted in a ton of pro scout traffic in the early season. (Traditionally, pro scouts only head out en masse prior to the trade deadline.)

How are the Flames looking in regards to the expansion draft and its various requirements?

There are often
players that go unheralded for their performance on the ice and how
their play affects the team overall. These players are typically not
talked about because they are miscast as having no heart, grit or aren't very flashy.
But, what these players bring to the team is stability.